


Even as a Dream

by scriboergosums



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fake Science, Time Travel, alternative universe, kind of, some real science too
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2019-08-24 14:02:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16641561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scriboergosums/pseuds/scriboergosums
Summary: Ten years ago, Leo Fitz takes a job in the States. Jemma Simmons does not.Yesterday, Leo Fitz was the head engineer at a tech company, ready to make his biggest sale. He hasn't talked to Jemma Simmons since graduation.Today, Leo Fitz wakes up next to Jemma Simmons, dinosaur print pajamas on his dresser. Jemma has short hair, a toddler on her hip, and a ring on her finger.





	1. "...

Fitz does not believe in fate. He never has. As someone who is a firm believer in personal responsibility and a reasonably ordered universe, he can't put weight into the idea that fate held any sway in the decisions of the world. 

Except, well, lately he’s starting to believe in something _else_ tampering with The Way Things Ought to Be. “Lately”, in this case, being the five minutes ago when he woke up sitting in one of those _Tiny Houses: Car Edition_ vans, wearing a suit he knows he threw out a decade ago. No one could take responsibility for _that_ kind of havoc.

And then there’s the girl.

She’s smiling at him when she takes a seat in front of him, a clipboard and stack of paper on her lap, perfectly at ease. “Phew, glad that worked,” she says. It doesn’t seem like she’s aware Fitz is nine seconds from having a mild panic attack.

“Who are you?” Fitz demands. “What the hell is going on?”

“One sec.” She holds up a finger up with one hand and writes something on her clipboard with the other hand. “Just… trying to … follow protocol.” The girl tucks the pen she was writing with behind her ear and it’s then that Fitz notices how _young_ she really looks. Geez, she couldn’t be older than a teenager. “All right, let’s see… how are you feeling?”

He blinks, waiting for the punchline. It never comes. “Are you serious?”

The girl gives a smirk – she _smirks_ – and starts writing on the clipboard again. “Chip…per. Trust me, this is more annoying for me than it is for you. I’ll just skip down to…” She flips through several pages, licking her thumb to separate the paper. “Ah,” she says eventually, “okay, so. Do you remember what happened today before you woke up here?”

Fitz opens and closes his mouth a few times to find that his mind is surprisingly fuzzy. He closes his eyes and it helps to see the memories. “…Yeah. I woke up, ran a bit, went to work. Talked to Radcliffe about funding. I submitted the FRAMEWORK report, _finally._ And then –” Fitz sits up and opens his eyes when the last bit comes to his mind, body tensing. “Well, then, I think – I was driving home and… yeah, my car was hit, wasn’t it? By a double decker? My car was spinning and then…”

Dread pins him down and he feels himself slump over. If he is looking for some sort of comfort or reassurance that what he thinks happened didn’t _actually_ happen, he does not find it in the girl’s face.

“Yikes,” she winces, and scribbles with vigor on the clipboard again.

“Wait, am I —?” Fitz starts to ask, stupidly, because obviously – “I’m dead.”

Why else would he be enduring this torture of a suit and a girl with serious lacking social skills? He is definitely dead – and in some kind of purgatory, maybe? Like the entrance interview before he gets to Where Ever. Whatever that meant. Fitz groans; this doesn’t make sense.  

But the girl snorts. “Nah,” she says, waving a hand. “You should be fine. Maybe. Probably. Think of it more like... a temporary lapse of living,” she tells him with a smile and a nod, blatantly enjoying this.

“So… death.”

She rolls her eyes and writes something down.

Unbelievable.

“Let me get this straight, then,” he starts, voice shrewd. “A temporary …. this is all in my head, then?”

“Not exactly… but, also kinda.”

“Brilliant. Is it hot in here?” His feet suddenly urge him to shoot upward, which really only harms more than helps, as he hits the top of the van with a lot of force.

“No, I keep this place breezy, but you might have a concussion now – will you just _calm_ your curls, Fitz?” The girl pushes down on his shoulders until he’s back in his seat, Fitz too distracted by his aching skull to protest. And she’s got a surprisingly tight grip.

“Will _you_ just tell me what’s going on?” he grits out, frazzled.

She gives him a look, a very Don’t Test Me one Fitz hasn’t seen from anyone but his _mum_ in who knows how long. It morphs into something that seems way too much like affection for a second there before she looks down at her watch and frowns.

“I will,” she says, and then, all in one breath, “… ask you another question first. Look,” she tells him sharply when Fitz opens his mouth, “we’re running out of time, and I need to finish something first. But this is one of those questions that clears stuff up, so it’ll help, I think.”

After a moment, he huffs. Add _that_ to the list of things that don’t make sense. As well as the chair he’s sitting in – some ragged beach thing that wasn’t worthy of a dump at this point. It creaks as he leans forward to pinch the bridge of his nose. He just _knows_ she’s smiling and it is _annoying_ , bloody hell. “What.”

“Is there anything you would change about your past?”

She says it so elegantly, almost sing-song like.

“This is – you’re really asking that,” Fitz says, jaw dropping.

“Yep, this is pretty legit,” she says, sitting back in her seat and crossing her arms.

Fitz shakes his head. What sort of ridiculous answer could he give to that ridiculous question? “Oh, pfff. I don’t know. Not climb that tree in second grade. Not eat Grandmum’s fruitcake that one year. Remember to wear –”

“Let me shrink the window down a little bit,” she interrupts with a puff, leaning forward and pressing her palms to her knees. “Is there a decision you made in the last ten years that you would change?”

“Ten years ago?” he echoes slowly. “That’s oddly specific.”

She doesn’t appreciate his quip, but bores intensely into his eyes, and for whatever reason, he can’t look away. “End of May, straight out of university? Two offers to think about, you asked a friend about what you should do?”

Fitz narrows his eyes but doesn’t respond. She stares at him for another eight seconds before frowning. “You were deciding whether to stay –”

“Yeah, I know what you’re talking about,” Fitz snaps, waving a hand. “But I don’t see where you’re going with this. Why would I want – why would _you_ want that to change? Doesn’t make sense.”

“You—” she groans and rubs at her eyes and then _laughs_ when she looks back at him, one small disbelieving bark. She’s giving him _that_ look again, with a hint of You Are Impossible annoyance, before shaking her head. “Stop trying to figure everything out for a second and work with me here.”

“Oh, is _that_ what we were doing? Working together? I thought you were just harassing me with vague questions.”

“Vague?” She raises an eyebrow. “You _just_ said the last question was too specific.”

“Oddly,” he corrects, “and it doesn’t make up for how you’re being vague about everything else!” Fitz throws his hands up. “What does my decision about work after uni have anything to do with what’s going on right now?”

“It’s pretty much why this is happening,” she says, but it comes out like an offhand comment because she is flicking the screen of her watch now.

Fitz has half a mind to flick at _her_. “See? That’s what I’m saying! What _is_ happening?”

The question, intended to be demanding and unescapable, Fitz completely ready to hold his ground until he got its proper answer, came out like a weak squeak instead; the floor of the car suddenly shakes violently and Fitz repeats the question.

Hands find his face and turn it to her, her face steady while everything else is starting to rock. “We don’t have time anymore, I can’t explain everything,” she tells him over the noise of things crashing onto the floor. “But – look, Fitz, there’s some things that are supposed to happen, okay? Meant to be, inevitable, rule of thumb stuff, and when they don’t happen… other stuff falls apart. I’m trying to make sure that doesn’t happen, but I need your help. Okay?”

“What?” Temporary relapse of living or not, Fitz’s heart thunders so hard it feels like it really _is_ about to stop. “No kay! What does that mean? What’s happening?”

“You have to trust me on this!” is all she says. The lights in the van start to flicker, but her watch is now glowing blue. She presses it a few times until the light is red and then turns to face him. In the chaos of everything, he finds she’s suddenly standing and he’s starring up from his seat. Her face is grave but she tries a weak smile and nods at him. “Help me, Fitz, you’re my only hope.”

Fitz gapes at her. “Did you just quote –”

But she slams her palm on her watch to cut him off, and everything shakes so hard he closes his eyes. He feels the sensation of being pulled back for a moment before everything stills.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is based off of something, but I don't want to spoil the surprise until the end :) 
> 
> thanks for reading!!!!


	2. Come

(Before the Accident)

They had two rules: oxfords, _never_ brogues, and DJs Burgers were mandatory after one of them made a deal.

For Lance Hunter, a deal meant conning the business mongrels, sometimes helping small companies (less than Hunter liked to brag about), and generally securing a deal where he left with heavier pockets than the other guy – all with a charming smile, of course. Not many, according to him, were better at manipulating the law to his advantage like he was, and, based on Hartley law firm’s stocks and solid, loophole-less legal system, he was probably right.

For Fitz, it meant a day like today: an impressed group of investors, a proud Radcliffe, and a prototype that took six months of work, sleepless nights, shower-less days and Red Bull by the gallon to put together. _He_ doesn’t look so pretty by the end of it, but the virtual reality stimulation glasses in his hands are the nicest things anyone’s ever seen. By the end of it, Fitz can’t tell whether he’s flying because of the energy drink or Radcliffe’s grin of approval.

So it’s just a little disappointing when his best mate is defying the sanctity of DJs by being more occupied with his phone than the glorious double cheddar and bacon burger in front of him.

“Fitz, mate, what are you doing tomorrow night?” Hunter asks as Fitz unwraps a burger gently. He doesn’t look up from his screen to see Fitz’s pointed stare.

Fitz chews for a solid minute, waiting for Hunter to acknowledge his surroundings – acknowledge the _reason_ for it – before Fitz rolls his eyes. “I dunno,” he says, resting his cheek on a fist. “I thought about watering my plants. I haven’t cleaned my sock drawer in a while, either.”

Hunter pats blindly at the table before grabbing a chip and nearly misses his mouth when he tries to eat it. “Right, well, do that afterwards. I need you at the Hub at eight.”

“Okay, but I’m warning you right now, I’m not in the mood to try and order sweet and sour chicken as separate orders again.”

“No, you can get whatever you want,” Hunter insists with a hand wave.

“Can I get you to put your phone down?” Fitz says flatly, reaching forward and placing his hand on top of Hunter’s.

Hunter jerks up in surprise, swiping his hand away in an almost protective manner. “What? Oh.” He nods respectfully when he meets Fitz’s eyes and must realize what he’s been doing. “Right. Sorry. Congrats, by the way. What’s the selling price?”

“We’re negotiating, but nothing less than ten figures. At _least_ ,” Fitz tells him proudly.

“So you’re paying for this, right?” Hunter teases, tossing a chip into the air. His phone beeps, though, so the chip smacks his nose on the way down as Hunter sits up and pulls out his phone again. He just grins at the screen, completely oblivious.

Fitz stares in disbelief, shaking his head after a moment. There’s no use fighting Hunter when he’s engrossed in whatever it is. By the looks of it, it’s something with long legs and a pretty face.

“All right,” Fitz asks eventually, “what’s at The Hub?”

As if he’d said the magic words, Hunter bounces in his seat. “I want you to meet someone.”

“Yeah? Who?”

Flicking a chip at Fitz, Hunter says, “the bird I’ve been seeing, she’s flying in. I told you about her,” he adds when Fitz’s face remains in post-chip impact grimace.

“Uh,” Fitz starts, playing with the wrapping on the burger. Unfortunately, the name is not magically written on the inside. “The blonde, the good snog, or the demonic hell beast?”

“Yeah. I mean, all of them.”

“ _All_ of them?”

“No, I – it’s all the sa—it’s just Bobbi,” Hunter says, fumbling with his ketchup as much as with his words. “Although, don’t mention the last bit to her tomorrow night.”

“Right.” Fitz hides a grin behind his hand as he chews.

“She wasn’t supposed to in the city for another two weeks, but I guess something with her lease fell through. She’s going to stay with her old mate from Uni until she finds her own place.” Hunter explains this all like it is so obvious – the _who_ he’s explaining _to_ is less obvious, though, as Hunter changes between eyeing his phone and the wall behind Fitz. “I’m gonna be honest, I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not. Jemma’s place is only four stops from ours, and Bob is great, _really_ great, but we’re kind of … volatile if we’re in the same place for too long, y’know what I mean?”

This is the sort of rant Fitz tunes out after a while, but the name strikes something in him, deep, and it coils around his lungs for a moment, catching his breath. He looks up. “… Jemma,” he repeats slowly.

“Mmhm.”

“Jemma… _Simmons_?”

Hunter snaps and points to Fitz. “ _That’s_ what it is, thank you. She’s coming, too, by the way.”

Fitz stares down at the table. _No, it’s not… but_ Bobbi _, too…_ ? “What do they look like?”

“Mm, well, Jemma’s about your height. Bobbi’s _maybe_ half an inch taller than me, but she wears heels all the time so it looks more, it’s bloody annoying,” Hunter says, unaware that Fitz has gone completely still. “You’ll see what I’m talking about when you meet them.”

“I’ve already met them, actually,” Fitz says, rubbing the back of his neck. At Hunter’s grunt of a question, he lets out a laugh. “Actually – the three of us went to Uni together.”

Hunter makes a face. “Come off it.”

“I’m serious. We met in Biology session one. I had physical therapy for my arm” – he waves the very one – “with Bobbi for three months, too. And Jemma was my lab partner a couple of times.”

Hunter’s staring at him, giving his undivided attention for the first time since they’ve sat down. “If you’re pulling on my leg, I know where you sleep,” he threatens. “You sure it’s the same them I’m talking about? _My_ Bob? I mean – do you know – what’s her favorite color?”

Fitz laughs. “Do _you_ know what it is?”

Hunter concedes after a moment. “Fair point.”

“It might be blue,” Fitz offers. “She always made me wear it.”

“Bossy even back then, I see,” Hunter nods like Fitz has forked over appropriate and meaningful evidence, of all things. “Why didn’t you tell me you knew her? I’ve been talking about Bobbi for months.”

“Well, to be fair, whenever you said you were seeing someone, I thought it was a _different_ someone each time.” Fitz’s grin is all cheeks and teeth when he dodges Hunter’s kick. “And it’s not like I really know her anymore. I haven’t talked to her since we left school.”

“What happened?”

Fitz leans his chin on a palm. “Life happened, I guess. Bobbi went to work at some lab in the States near her mum. I was in DC, and Simmons – I guess if she’s still here, stayed in England and worked for SciTech.”

Hunter chews for a moment and then nods. “Yeah, I think she’s head of some lab now, smart bird.”

“Hm.” Fitz nods politely. “Did you know she only got the SciTech job because I basically handed it to her?” he says after a beat, picking at the silverware in front of him. Hunter makes a sound of interest, so he adds, “Yeah, they only had one position open, but she said she wouldn’t take it unless there was room for both of us.”

“That’s quite noble of her.”

For some reason, the reverence in Hunter’s voice rubs Fitz the wrong way, enough to make him sit back up straighter. “More like _naïve_. I mean, I did the math – she had a better chance there, it would’ve been pointless for me to stay. So, I took the offer with Stark, told SciTech she had the job, and then, well.” He shrugs.

But when he looks up, Hunter’s staring at Fitz’s hands on the table, now semi-buried under a pile of shredded napkins. He gives Fitz a wry look.

“Well, all things considered,” Hunter says slowly, flicking a chip at Fitz’s face again, “it sounds like you were both willing to sacrifice a lot for each other.”

Fitz shakes his head as he sweeps the napkin shreds into the empty DJ’s bag. “Nah. This just made sense.”

“What did she think about it? About you leaving and her taking the job?”

“Dunno,” Fitz says noncommittally. “We haven’t talked since.”

Hunter narrows his eyes. “So, what? She’s willing to drop the job for you and then you don’t even tell her you were leaving?” At Fitz’s blank expression, Hunter laughs incredulously. “Damn, Fitz, that’s cold.”

“We were better off this way – it was better for _her._ Clearly. She’s head of a lab now!”

“And you’re the Golden Boy of the biggest tech company in London,” Hunter adds. “This is perfect, then – come tomorrow and you can show her what you’ve been up to!”

Fitz snorts. “I don’t have to prove anything to Jemma Simmons.”

“Well, come anyway. I’m buying.”

“Wow, you _must_ really like Bobbi,” Fitz teases as Hunter busies himself with gathering the rest of the trash into the DJ’s bag.

“She drives me barmy,” Hunter replies, but he’s grinning. It’s a good look on him.

“She’s –” Fitz starts, but his phone suddenly rings and shakes in his pocket, and the name reads _HR_ when he pulls it out.

“Ah, no rest for the Golden Boy,” Hunter says solemnly. He waves Fitz off as he heads to the door. “But hey – I’m putting you down as a yes for tomorrow, yeah? 8 o’clock!”

  

* * *

 

 

The thing about working for Holden Radcliff is, he’s a pretty unpredictable bloke. 

Hunter likes to joke that Fitz is getting PTSD from his phone going off at two in the morning – “Fitz, my boy, I’ve got an idea,” Radcliffe would say, and usually he did have some rabbit hole thought trail, and usually that meant another 50 hour week ahead for Fitz.

But for all that hassle, Fitz had high respects for the engineer slash entrepreneur, building _RAD TECH_ from scraps to be the leading manufacture in London. And now he takes vacations every other week to places with umbrellas in the drinks and his assistant calls Fitz at normal hours of the day instead. So, win-win.

“Hello, Piper,” Fitz says as strolls up to the front desk, knocking on the ledge. “Do you have the files?”

Piper pulls down her headset and spins around in her chair. “Hi, sir. Yes, I have the files here.” She picks up a fat file with a bright red stamp on the front, _FRAMEWORK_ , and holds it out to Fitz. “They are just about ready to be signed, I’ve been going through and highlighting the case numbers so it can be filed later.”

“Whoa, hold on,” Fitz says, holding up a hand to stop her. Piper looks at him with wide eyes. “We’re not signing today.”

“We’re not – I’m sorry, sir, I don’t understand.”

Fitz nods and motions for her to follow as he continues the trek down to his office. Piper’s heels click loudly behind him as she tries to catch up, thankfully with a notepad in hand. “I have to fix a couple of things before we can sign it. But I need you to double check with Roxxon about the input energy levels – tell them I’m not going to accept anything under 2000.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And if the circuit boards could be doubled by next Thursday, that would be great.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thank you,” he says absently, thumbing through the file. He stops again, turning to look at Piper, who was still frantically writing. “And don’t worry about the case numbers, I’ll mark them when I go over this.”

The relief on her face is instant. “Thank you. Is there anything –”

Piper’s start of a question is cut off with the flourish of a door swinging open and Radcliffe’s undeniable laughter. “Fitz, my boy! How was lunch?” He clasps a hand on Fitz’s shoulder and shakes it – his whole body seems to be shaking, his energy is vibrating through his skin.

Fitz smiles easily, adjusting his collar. “It was fine. And yours?” he adds, glancing over Radcliffe’s shoulder to the doorway of the conference room where three other suited men were watching the exchange or talking into their phones.

Radcliffe follows Fitz’s eyes and swings his hands forward and then claps his palms together. “Well, we were working out shares, actually, and I had a question – you worked with Mackenzie on this project, didn’t you?”

“He’s listed on the project files, yes,” Fitz says, but by the way Radcliffe’s smile cracks a little, there’s no question about what Fitz really means.

“Well, did he work on the project or was he just on the project files?” One of the men behind Radcliffe steps up until he’s practically squeezed between Fitz and Radcliffe. He’s as figidty as Radcliffe, but the energy couldn’t be more different – stressed and overt confidence.

“Fitz, you remember Christian Ward, one of our investors,” Radcliffe says, shifting his shoulder awkwardly so he can avoid Ward’s sudden presence.

“Sir,” Fitz nods.

“Well? Mackenzie?” Ward demands. “Where is he?”

“I can’t say that I know where he is.”

Radcliffe blinks at Fitz’s blunt answer before turning to his assistant. “Piper?”

Piper nods quickly and digs through her pockets until she finds a bright green sticky note. “He’s at the hospital again, sir – his daughter –”

Ward gasps angrily. “ _Again_? How often does this happen?”

“Well, the circumstances –” Piper starts, but Ward holds up a hand to silence her.

“Radcliffe,” he starts, so loudly that everyone within twenty feet stops and looks over to the group, Piper the most alarmed. “Your product is solid, and I want to move forward with it, but I’m going to be honest with you, I don’t know how I feel cutting deals with you if your staff is not putting in the work for what I’m investing here.”

“With all due respect, sir,” Fitz interrupts firmly, in such a way that all questioning eyes know better than to look now, “ _my_ product is going to be worth more than anything else you will ever invest in, and I can assure you, I have no problem carrying my own weight.”

Ward seems taken aback at first, and he looks Fitz up and down again. Whatever he sees is pleasing enough because he smirks. “So you feel confident that I can put the entirety of the project on your shoulders, on your name alone?”

Fitz gives him a hard stare before giving him a stern nod. “Yes.”

“Hm. I suggest you scratch out a certain name indefinitely, Radcliffe,” Ward says, hitting Radcliffe in the chest with the back of his hand.

Radcliffe, who’d been watching the exchange with varying degrees of apprehension, starts at the whack and rubs gingerly at the spot. “Right. It may be time to look into Mackenzie’s employment. Anyway, gentlemen, we’ll adjourn this tomorrow morning. Piper, can you show them out?”

Fitz shakes their hands and gives Radcliffe a broad smile as he tucks the file under his arm and opens the door to his office. It has one of those ridiculous views of the city, St. Patrick’s Cathedral out of one window and Westminster Abbey out the other. Not that he has much time in here, anyway; the labs are in the basement. One view he is not expecting to see, however, is the tall, beautiful woman sitting in his desk chair when he walks in.

“There you are,” she says simply, but she’s smiling in an almost wicked way. 

“You know, I don’t remember giving you a key to my office,” Fitz tells her, throwing his coat off and walking around the desk until he’s standing in front of her. 

“You left it open. And you practically invited me when you started to try and do my job,” she tells him, holding out a hand for him to take. He rolls his eyes but adheres to her wishes, pulling her up out of the seat.

“Hello, Aida,” he says when they’re eye level.

“Give me that file, Fitz,” she orders and holds her hand out for it expectantly.

“I would,” he tells her as he side-steps out of her way so he can take a seat. The chair smells like flowers. “If I thought you could go through them better than I could.” He doesn’t entirely mean it – Aida _is_ the head merger lawyer on the board – but this project is basically his child, so.

Aida laughs but doesn’t try to take the file away from him when he opens them and pulls a pen out of the drawer. Instead she goes to sit on the edge of the desk, swinging her legs, the same flowery smell hitting the air in a new wave. “Maybe I should go tell Radcliffe that you’re not letting me do my job.”

“He’ll just agree with me,” Fitz argues, swatting her knee away as she scoots closer.

“ _No_ , he’ll agree with me. I’m his favorite niece, after all.”

Fitz snorts at that. “While I’m sure nepotism is alive and well, I’m still not giving you the files.” He punctuates the statement with a bright smile, uncapping his pen.

Aida swings her legs a little bit, her heels hitting the drawers of the desk. “Has anyone ever told you that you can be kind of –”

“—an arsehole?” Fitz offers when she trails off.

“—intense.”

Fitz shrugs and gives her a side smile, catching her eye from the corner of his. She pursed her lips playfully. “I’m just concerned with making the best product, intense arsehole or not.”

“Has anyone ever told you it’s kind of a turn on when you’re concerned like that?” And this time she _does_ reach forward, but her hand lands on his and she squeezes it for a second.

“You’d be the first,” Fitz chuckles, removing his hand from under hers.

But she’s used to this; they’ve been playing this game for quite a while now, and knows he’s just too busy to engage. So she places her hand on his shoulder instead. “What are you going to celebrate when this is all finished? Besides DJs with Hunter, I mean, which _hardly_ counts. Let me take you out for a drink. Tomorrow, when everything’s filed away.”

“Tomorrow?” Fitz looks up, but then – “ah, I can’t. I have plans.”

Aida raises her eyebrow, but she doesn’t press further. “Well, the offer still stands.” And then she slides off the desk and presses her mouth to his ear. “Postponed until whenever you want.”

Fitz shivers. He watches her go and can’t stop from shooting back, “did anyone ever tell you that you’re hard to turn down?”

Aida smiles as she strolls over to the door and opens it. “You wouldn’t be the first,” she all but purrs before giving a “ta!” and the door swings close, the clicking of her heels fading as she walks down the hall.

Fitz readjusts the pen in his hand, but he keeps looking at the paper, reading the same line again and again, with no comprehension. Not that he doesn’t know what it says – he wrote most of it himself, after all, but his mind is just wandering. His hand still feels warm from where Aida had touched him.

But he’s not even thinking about Aida, not really, and this Tip of a Relationship they’ve been balancing on for the last couple of years. She’s always been perfectly open that she’d like something more, but Fitz is in a pleasant relationship with reaching the top of this corporation; involving himself with anyone is not a risk he’s willing to take, even if he’s indulged in their interactions anyway. No, his mind is going back to his conversation with Hunter, about the last time he _did_ involve himself with someone.

Jemma Simmons, with her long curls and toothy smile and her bubbly enthusiasm that bounced off the walls. He can’t even remember why they’d even started talking that first class, but then they were three semesters into their degree and she sat next to him one morning, holding out a sandwich. “You need to eat something that doesn’t have 50 grams of sugar in a bite,” she’d told him without looking up from her physics worksheet, and Fitz remembers thinking he was having a heart attack, the way his chest was beating so erratically but also somehow caving in.

He hadn’t been lying to Hunter: it had been the smart, _right_ move to let her take the SciOps job, even if it meant moving to a different country and isolating himself for a while. Hunter didn’t need to know all the details about their relationship to know they had dropped contact. It isn’t something that anyone can just say, anyway, to just throw out there in casual conversation; “she was my best mate, but she was also more than that, and it was hard to leave,” he’d have to admit, and what was the point of bringing it up when he had long moved on?  

 

* * *

 

 

And he had, honestly. Which is why he’s a little confused when he has to wipe his palms against his legs as he stands outside The Hub that Friday night.

 _What are you, nervous?_ he scoffs to himself, waving his hands out. He checks his watch – 8:12.

The old hangout hasn’t changed in the decade long time Fitz has been going there. First, during his college days, when he’d been a Way Too Regular Regular, sometimes falling asleep in the booths under a pile of research grants and journal extracts. It’d been one of the things he missed the most when he was in the States; no one could make nachos the same way the main cook here could. It’d been a no brainer for Fitz to bring Hunter along when they’d become roommates a few years back. Barstools in the back, neon lights flashing, a mic in the corner – it’s the same old Hub.

It’s the same old Bobbi Morse, too. Fitz spots her through the window. Her hair is far longer and blonder than he remembers it, but she’s still ridiculously tall, even sitting down and hunching over in her seat at one of the tables in the middle of the room. She’s smiling coyly at something Hunter’s saying, who’s waving his hands in the air to illustrate whatever point he’s trying to make. And – surprise, surprise, it looks like he’s combed his hair and ironed his shirt. Fitz is still trying to wrap his head around how his two worlds could have collided, but the look on their faces is too genuine to question it.

And then – there she is, sitting across the table from them. Simmons’ hair is still long, and it’s covering half her face as she turns to smile at the conversation. Gone were the days of collared shirts and matching sweaters. She’s wearing a black dress that doesn’t hide any curve, with bright red heels the same shade as her lipstick. Fitz suddenly feels like he’s going to fall over but is somehow completely rooted to the ground at the same time, and the first thing he thinks is that he’d like to hear her laugh.

But the door of The Hub opens and someone walks out and the rush of the hot air from inside smacks him hard in the face and he realizes what a tremendously bad idea this is. What is he going to say to someone he, for lack of a better term, left behind ten years ago? Fitz shakes himself out of the trance, remembering suddenly that he’s standing and staring at the party inside and there is no way he going to join them. 

“What are you _doing?_ ” he says to himself, turning around quickly and pulling up the edge of his jacket to hide the back of his neck in case they look out the window. “This is not – you shouldn’t be here.”

He’ll make up some excuse to Hunter later, something about work or falling asleep, it doesn’t matter. He’s so happy he probably won’t even notice Fitz’s absence anyway.

Fitz’s phone beeps in his pocket and dread fills him, hoping, praying, he hadn’t been seen, but it’s just Piper texting him that the _FRAMEWORK_ has been completely submitted. Another text pops up on his phone a second later, from Aida, who no doubt had been the one to submit the file herself: _Congrats_.

 _Thanks,_ he replies, and then, without much thought, _what are you doing right now?_

_Waiting for you._

He smiles as he slides the phone back in his pocket.

Fitz speed walks back to his car, ignoring the weird ache in his chest. He’s not running away, he felt like he had to say to himself, it just doesn’t make sense. Going to The Hub doesn’t make sense, because he and Simmons never made sense, either. The sun is setting in his rearview mirror as he drives away, and he catches the last glimpse of the Hub as he rounds the corner.

He’s still staring at the sign when hears the honk of the bus ahead of him.

 

* * *

 

His head is throbbing.

What _was_ that dream, anyway? Some teenager had kidnapped him and slapped some _Star Wars_ quote at the end of a ridiculous explanation about … choices? Fate? Who knows. She was probably just some messed up dream as a result of the – oh, _God_ , the accident! Right, of course; his brain is highly drugged up right now, isn’t it?

Fitz squeezes his fingers and then his toes. Huh. So, not too bad, over all. He rubs at his arms first and then his face, searching for an IV or a bandage of some kind, but he comes up empty. All he’s got is a hazy, sluggish feeling, but his eyes flicker open.

The first thing he notices is a pale green ceiling, the exact shade of green of his room back at his apartment. So maybe the accident hadn’t been as bad as he’d thought, if he’d been able to go home that night. He tries to sit up, feeling none of the soreness he thinks he should be feeling.

Before Fitz can congratulate himself for cheating death, he suddenly becomes aware of the warm arm wrapped snuggly around his waist. His eyebrows shoot up. Fitz sees the top of a woman’s head, with her short brown hair fanning across his stomach. One of her legs is curved around his, too. _Aida doesn’t have short hair_ , Fitz finds himself thinking. He tries to remove the arm around him but then freezes when the woman stirs and tugs on him.

“Fitz, wait,” she says, her breath hot and ticklish against his bare chest. “Just five more minutes.”

“I, uh,” he tries, “I have to go.”

“Five minutes,” she repeats, tightening the hold of her arm. “You’ve held it for longer before.”

Fitz looks up then and his mouth drops open. This is _not_ his bedroom. For one thing, it’s about an eighth of the size; everything is cramped close together, and there are piles of clothes and things everywhere. Not in a thrown mess by any means, but collected pile or not, Fitz doesn’t remember ever owning something with a bright pink bunny on it. There’s pictures, too, on the wall, and on the nightstand when he turns – a family of four smiling up at him.

The hand on his chest stretches and Fitz catches something shimmering on the fourth finger. _Holy_ shit, he thinks, _did I sleep with a_ married _woman last night?_

He doesn’t have a moment to think before there’s a knock on the door, and it swings open with all the grace of shattering glass. A little face appears around the corner. “I’m awake,” the boy says and he beams at Fitz.

The woman rolls over until she’s on the edge of the bed and holds out a hand, which the kid eagerly runs to take. She pulls him up onto the bed and gives him a hug and he squeals in laughter. Fitz watches the whole thing on his side of the bed, feeling like he’s so confused he’s about to throw up.

“Is your sister up, too?” the mother asks, and when the boy nods she tickles him so he’s laughing again. “It’s time for breakfast, then. Ask Dad to make you pancakes.”

The little boy rips out of his mother’s hands and bounces on the bed, using his hands to smack into Fitz’s chest as he laughs. “Pancakes, Dad!” Fitz leaps out of the bed so quickly that he rams against the wall behind him and the dresser next to him rattles violently.

“Whoa, be careful!” the woman says, sitting up then and reaching for the little boy protectively. When she looks up at Fitz, he feels his jaw drop again.

“ _Simmons?_ ”

Jemma Simmons tucks her bangs behind her ear and adjusts the scoop of her shirt where it’d fallen to reveal her shoulder, like it’s the most normal thing in the world for her to do. She doesn't seem the least bit phased to see him, which is unnerving. “Fitz, are you alright?”

“What?” is all he can get out, the pounding blood in his ears making it sound like he is underwater.

She gives him a concerned look and opens her mouth to say something, but a wail sounds off in the distance and she turns towards the door. “Someone wants to join the party,” she says and scoops up the boy in her arms. She throws another look at Fitz over her shoulder but doesn’t say anything else before leaving the room.

Fitz, suddenly panicked and overwhelmed, shakes his head and smacks his face a couple of times. He’s still dreaming, this is still part of the dream from before. But then he feels something cold against his face and pulls his hand back to see –

A ring. On his left hand.

_Holy shit._


	3. Back!

It takes Fitz three hyperventilating seconds to decide he needs to get _out of here_.

He tugs the ring off and places it on the nightstand, and then does a quick scan of himself and reevaluates. Pants. He needs to find pants first.

There’re piles of clothing on the dresser against one wall of the abysmally small bedroom. They’re stacked, arranged into four piles; the first one looks like it’s a bunch of patterned button ups and cardigans, but the other piles are either covered in pink or llama prints, so those’ll have to do. When Fitz tugs on a pair of dark pants and a few top layers, he can’t help but wonder why the fit sits on him so well.

Fitz opens the door of the room cautiously, like he’s expecting to stumble into something dangerous, but the door opens to a landing of a hallway. A few meters down, the sounds of voices are just loud enough for him to make out. Avoiding that way, then.

But he does a double take—there’s a staircase on that side of the hallway, too. _Ugh_. Of course.

The hardwood floor doesn’t creak like he’d thought it would, but his footsteps sound way too loud anyway as he tries to speed walk past the room where the voices are coming from. He’s taken two steps down the stairs when he takes a peek behind him—a sort of reckless abandonment, basking in his escape—when something catches his attention from the corner of his eye.

His face, staring up at him.

Pictures and pictures line the wall of the stairs, frames filled with _his_ smile. And Simmons. There’s a few with his mum, he thinks he can make out, but most of them are him and Simmons, and two children.

“Fitz?”

Fitz starts and smacks his nose on the corner of a frame. “Ow,” he hisses and rubs furiously at his face. Simmons is biting back a smile when he looks up at her. He realizes he must’ve stopped halfway down the stairs and subconsciously leaned forward until he’d been breathing against the glass of the pictures. So much for a silent escape.

 “Goodness, you’re jumpy today. Go easy on the caffeine,” she says, full of laughter and teasing.

He knows he’s technically just seen her minutes ago, but he still gapes at the sight of her. Jemma freakin’ Simmons, standing here and laughing at him, like it hasn’t been a decade since they’ve so much as been in the same room.

“You going out?”

Fitz opens and closes his mouth a few times. “Yes. No. Yes.”

 “Well, whatever you’re doing, can you pick up some of those gluten free biscuits Carter likes on the way? I might have finished the bag yesterday.” She grimaces insincerely.

 “What?” It comes out like a croak, Fitz’s mouth dry.

Simmons narrows her eyes. “The ones from—” she starts, but there’s a _thud_ and then someone is crying. She immediately turns and stalks back into the room.

Fitz doesn’t wait for her. Holding onto the railing of the stairs, he jumps down the rest of the way. Jemma freakin’ Simmons is here and she’s talking to him like that’s not as insanely mental as it is. He needs to find someone who can explain this to him _now_.

There’s a pile of keys on the table next to front door that Fitz stuffs into his pants before pulling the door open and barreling onto a porch. He glances around for a pair of shoes and finds muddy trainers.

He steps into them haphazardly, hops down three steps, and lands on a rock walkway in one breath. The path curves around to a connecting car port where a pile of silver scraps bearing a BMW insignia is. Supposedly, this is a _car_.

 “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Fitz groans, pulling out the keys from his pocket. He tries to stick a key into the lock and jiggles with the door handle for fifteen seconds before slamming his palm against the window in agitation when it doesn’t open.

 “You all right there, Turbo?”

Fitz jumps at the voice. A tall, dark man in a t-shirt is watching him from behind a hedge, clearly entertained, a pair of sheers in his hands. Fitz opens his mouth but nothing comes out. He’s struck by the thought that he _knows_ this face.

 “Fitz?” the man asks again, and then he raises his eyebrows in a certain way and something clicks in Fitz’s head.

 “Al _phonso_?”

The man smiles wryly. “Man, I don’t call _you_ Leopold for a reason, don’t make me start.”

 “Alphonso _Mackenzie_ ,” Fitz tries again, rubbing at his eyes. This is too unreal.  

 “Leopold Fitz. I can say your whole name, too.” Mackenzie laughs and shakes his head. “You all right, bud?” he asks again.

What a loaded question. ‘ _I got into an accident and suddenly I woke up here, and I’m not entirely convinced I’m not dead’_ is lodged in his throat, but he’s still trying to process _Alphonso Mackenzie_ standing here.

Alphonso Mackenzie, the mechanic that tweaked parts for Fitz when he needed it and boasted about his handmade expresso machine like it’d been some big deal. Fitz could sum up all their conversations in their shared years at RAD TECH on a post it note. The last time Fitz had seen him had to been weeks ago, when he’d said something or another about some family thing and how he was not going to be in the lab for a while. Radcliffe had said his employment was being reevaluated just yesterday, though the decision seemed unanimously in favor of termination.

And now here he is, staring bemusedly at Fitz.

 “Jemma, the kids—they’re okay?”

 “What?” Fitz glances back at the house when Mackenzie points to it. “Yeah. I have to go and—figure this out. Do you know where I can find my car?” He winces. “What am I saying, it’s a metal box by now.”

“Is something wrong with the Toyota?”

“What?”

Mackenzie raises his eyebrows. “Your car?”

“This is a BMW.” Geez, this guy’s a mechanic? No wonder he’s being fired.

Mackenzie crosses his arms, the tips of the sheers sticking up on one side. “I’m talking about the Toyota in the driveway.”

Sure enough, there’s a blue Toyota at the edge of the cobbled driveway. But the comfort of seeing it is almost completely cancelled out when Fitz notices the houses surrounding him, with their colored mailboxes and matching fences. Nothing but suburban uniformity for miles.

“Where _am_ I?”

“Home.”

Fitz turns to gape at Mackenzie. “You live here? How far is this from the city?”

Mackenzie’s eyes widen. “Southampton’s not more than a ten minute drive.”

 _Southampton_? Why would he care where Southampton is? “Great,” Fitz eventually says, at a loss. They’re going in circles.

Mackenzie perks up one side of his mouth into a half smile, but when he talks, he sounds more worried than he looks amused.

“Are you sure you’re all right, Fitz? You sound like you’re still dreaming.”

More like having a nightmare. “Peachy. I think I’m going to go and see if I can figure this out. Don’t worry,” he adds, when Mackenzie looks ready to jump the fence and join him. “I’ll figure it out.”

“Whatever you say, Turbo.”   

The only thing working in his favor right now is the door opening on the first try and Fitz lets out a cry in relief when he sees that the tank of gas is almost full. He almost wants to roll down the window and tell Mackenzie not to bother coming into work today, but the man’s not in his yard when Fitz backs out onto the street.

 

* * *

 

 

Southampton _is_ only ten minutes away—the sign welcoming him to the city is a faded wooden plank, much like the rest of the seaside town.

What’s _not_ so faded is a road marker that claims London is an hour and a half away. If it wasn’t for the honking behind him—six cars in the two seconds he’s in the city square—Fitz would’ve drove straight into a bookstore on the corner in his angry surprised.

He’s so angry and confused, actually, that his vision tunnels until all he can see is the asphalt; the kilometer count to London on road markers decreases as his speedometer increases, and he feels like he can breathe again when he sees the large brick building.

RAD TECH, with its marble lobby, artificial plants in every corner, and a really unflattering six foot photograph of Holden Radcliffe hanging over the security desk, hits Fitz in waves of alleviation. _Finally_ something that he recognizes.

He practically skips up to the security desk. Only one officer is at the entrance at the moment, sitting in the chair with his head bent low, staring at a computer screen. The gate is locked.

“O’Brien,” Fitz asks, skidding to a stop and leaning against the front desk.

The man in question jumps in surprise, spilling a cupful of pens across his keyboard, and then stands, turning the screen of his computer away from Fitz. “Can I help you, sir?”

“What day is it?” Fitz glances around at the emptiness of the building, his smile deterred for the moment. “Where is everyone?”

“It’s the weekend, sir. Normal business hours are Monday through Friday,” O’Brien replies easily.

Ah, that explains it. “Right,” Fitz says with a nod. “Do you know if Radcliffe is in? Actually –” Fitz pushes away from the desk and walks over to the gated entrance, O’Brien quickly following him from his side of security. “I’ll go check myself.”

O’Brien gives him a look like he’s in pain or something. He doesn’t open the gate for a full twenty seconds before Fitz glances warily at him. “O’Brien, open the gate.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” he says immediately, “I can’t do that.”

Fitz glares. “Why not?”

“I’m going to need to see some ID,” O’Brien insists instead. “Do you have an appointment?”

“ _Appointment_? Why would I need an appointment?”

“It’s part of the visitor protocol.”

“Visitor—” Fitz repeats, and shakes his head. “No, no, no, not you, too. You see me _every day_ , O’Brien.”

But O’Brien is relentless. “Name, please?”

“O’Brien. This is not funny.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but I need your name—”

“Are you—? _Fine,_ I’ll play along. Leopold Fitz.”

O’Brien clicks at the computer keys. Without looking up, he says, “spell it?”

Fitz grits his teeth. “L-E-O-P—it’s _me_. _Fitz_ , O’Brien.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but you’re not in the database.”

“What? I’m—I’m the _head_ engineer of RAD TECH.” Fitz leans over the security desk and reaches for the computer screen. “Let me see—”

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you—”

“—come _on_ , you can’t be _serious_ —”

“—don’t want to ask for assistance—”

“ _There_ you are!”

Fitz and O’Brien, hands full of the other’s jacket for two very different reasons, both turn at the sound of a voice and the clicking of shoes against the marble behind them.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you, Fitz!” The girl has latched onto one of Fitz’s arm and tugs at him before either man can fully release the other, so O’Brien rams into the desk ledge and squeaks in pain as she pulls Fitz away from the security booth. “You move fast— I thought I’d have at least a few hours before you fled to the city.”

Fitz looks down and – “No. _No_.” He shakes his head violently and tries to pull his arm free from The Teenager from Hell. “Get away from me. O’Brien, please—”

“—excuse us for this little episode,” The Teenager interjects, tugging on Fitz again, _hard_. He feels the ground under his palm, and it takes him a second to realize that she’s tipped his balance in the scuffle so he’s half kneeling.

She winces. “My bad.”

O’Brien opens and closes his mouth like a faulty drawbridge and rubs at his upper arm but otherwise doesn’t move as The Teenager helps Fitz back up to his feet.

“ _Ow_ ,” he hisses and swats at her hand. “Let go of me!”

“It’s time to _go_ , Fitz,” she says through clenched teeth. She keeps an iron grip on him, even as she’s kicking the door open with her foot and waving at O’Brien. “I’m so sorry about this.”

“You’re _sorry_? Why are you even—"

“Not _you,_ I’m talking to the nice security man you just harassed,” she says and gives Fitz one final push out the door.

He stumbles down the front steps before catching himself and throws her a glare. “What are you made out of?” He rubs at his arm that is sure to have hand sized bruises all over it.

The Teenager rolls her eyes. “The collected fury of really pissed off feminists,” she quips, smirking. _Ugh_ , that is so annoying already. She jumps down the stairs and strolls past him, waving a hand. “Come on. The parking meters here cost _ridiculous_ and I didn’t have time to get any British money.”

Fitz gaps at her. “I’m not going anywhere with you,” he tells her fiercely, and turns back towards RAD TECH.

“Suit yourself, but I wouldn’t try going back in there.” She’s not even looking at him as she speaks. “I’m not going to be the one dragging you out next time.”

Her words sound like a threat, but not from her. He looks back at RAD TECH and sees O’Brien through the glass, pointing him out to another security personnel. Both men regard him suspiciously.

Heat floods Fitz’s face, and his vision swims. The place he could navigate in the dark doesn’t recognize him in broad daylight.

A honk startles him and he whips around. The Teenager is sitting in the drivers’ seat of the Toyota now, a pair of sunglasses on the tip of her nose. She leans across the passenger seat and waves out the window. “Come on!”

Fitz clenches his jaw and pushes his sleeves up. “You—you—” He stops right in front of the car and leans over the open window, shaking his hands in the air. “What—what is happening? What—why did I wake up in the _suburbs_ with _Simmons_ and – and O’Brien doesn’t—why am I not in the database? What did you do?”

His mouth isn’t working as fast as his brain so most of the gusto in his voice comes out winded and frantic, and not at all menacing like he’d hoped. He can’t see The Teenager’s eyes, but her lack of another facial reaction is not encouraging.

She lowers her chin until she’s looking at him over the top of the sunglasses. “Get in.”

“Wha—no, I’m—I’m not going anywhere with you until you tell me what is going on!”

Her lips press into a line. “Fitz. Get in the car so I can explain.”

He shakes his head. “Tell me right now.”

But then a door opens behind him. O’Brien, the coward, is pointing him out to the other guard, who locks eyes with Fitz and looks ready to stomp the life out of him.

“Not to be a buzzkill or anything, but you’re not going to hear _anything_ I say if you don’t get in the car in the next two seconds,” The Teenager says.

“Yep.” Fitz pulls the passenger door of the Toyota open just as the security guard picks up the pace and makes a beeline for them. “I’m going to regret this—I’m _already_ regretting this—”

He’s cut off when The Teenager yanks the car in reverse and pulls away from the curb so fast, the tires smoke.

“That’s the spirit. Hey, do you know how to get to Kings Cross from here?”

She throws a hand over the passenger chair to look behind her and then grins at Fitz when she rights the car, who can only muster out, “why?” breathlessly.

“I parked my van back there.”

“Why do we need—”

“Right or left?”

Fitz grips the front dash and blinks at the passing road markers. “Take a right in two blocks. Why do we need to get to your van?”

“Because” is all she says, and Fitz winces when she abruptly jolts into the other lane and a series of horns sound off behind them.

She tugs off the sunglasses. “Whoops.”

“Are you even allowed to drive? Legally, I mean?” Fitz glares.

She doesn’t look away from the road, but she still gives him an annoyed side eye. “I’m completely legal. Just not used to driving on this side of the road. Cut me some slack.”

“I’ll try,” Fitz says flatly, and a particularly hard brake makes him lurch forward and reminds him to put on his seatbelt. “Am I dead?” he asks then, sitting up and staring at her. “Because I can’t think of any other reason why all of this is happening.”

“You’re not dead. Or dreaming. Or on drugs,” she adds when he opens his mouth.

“You sure? There’s some pretty strong psychedelics—brake. _Brake_!”

The whole car jerks forward when The Teenager slams her foot down, and then jerks again when she hits the exhaust in a similar fashion, narrowly turning the car before it rear ends a semi. She drives up the curb before Fitz grabs the wheel and redirects the car back onto the road.

“This is ridiculous, pull over.” Fitz keeps his hand on the wheel, but she shoves it away with her shoulder.

“Shut up, don’t make me kill you again.”

“ _Again?_ ” Fitz pales. “But—”

“I’m kidding! Sorry—too soon, I get it. Calm down.”

“How can I?” he complains. “I’m not trying to be dramatic here, but this, you have to understand— _none_ of this makes sense, and you’re the only one—”

“Right or left?”

“Right. And you’re the only one that seems to know who I really am, but I don’t even know who _you_ are. How do you know me? What did you do to me? You said—”

“I said I’m going to explain,” she says, her face serious. “But like you pointed out, driving’s not my strong suit, so let me park the car before more damage is done. This car doesn’t have the best insurance.”   

She takes another turn where the car almost rams into a post box, but Kings Cross is suddenly in view. Fitz feels his stomach flop when she pulls into a spot next to a van— _the_ van. He doesn’t move when she shoves her door open and jumps out.

“Fitz?” She sticks her head back into the car.

He takes a breath. “Look, I have a lot of money. You can have as much as you want, just please, stop whatever this is, and I promise I won’t press charges.”

Graveling is a new low, but he’s desperate.

And unsuccessful, it seems, because all The Teenager does is gawk at him.

“Wow, okay.” Her head disappears as she straightens, but a second later she returns with a steely look in her eye. “This is not something you can buy yourself out of, which, I know, is shocking and new to a white dude, but. Please stop embarrassing both of us and get in the van.”

She says it all in a breath, like she’s exasperated. “It will remain stationary, I promise,” she adds, and holds out a hand.

Fitz huffs. “That’s comforting.” But he feels like she could also promise this will go on forever if he doesn’t listen. He shoves her hand away and gets out of the car.

The Teenager pushes the van door open with ease and gives a reassuring smile that Fitz tries not to sneer at as he gets in. The beach chair is waiting for him like a bad omen.

She closes the door and the space is enclosed in darkness for a second before something glows—it’s her watch, from before. Except this time she moves her wrist around and then glowing blue codes are floating around them. She presses something in the air and a voice beckons _area secure_ and Fitz thinks he hears a lock shift into place.

He watches the floating words blur by as she flicks her finger in the air, like she’s sorting through the random garble. “Who are you?”

“The name’s Sky. Sky with an ‘e’ at the end of it, if you’re spelling it in your head.” The floating blue bits stop and she pinches the air and a particular set of garble enlarges, and then she clicks something else, and all of a sudden the ambient noises from outside are gone. “Okay, we should be good now.”

Fitz blinks, a couple thousand times. “Wait, I’m sorry— _who_ are you?”

She leans over and Fitz flinches, thinking she’s going to touch him, but she just presses a switch near his shoulder and the light in the middle of the ceiling turns on. She flicks her wrist again and the circle of blue disappears.

She smiles. “That’s a little harder to explain. There’s a non-disclosure contract as tall as me that safeguards what I can say, so bear with me if I start to sound like I’m playing Taboo.”

“Non-disclosure?” That sounds so official. Fitz had been picturing some rogue troublemaker, not someone who handled documents.  

“Yeah, you know, sworn to secrecy. Didn’t Hunter ever teach you any lawyer stuff?”

“You know Hunter?”

Skye shrugs. “Not as well as I know you, but, sure, I know Hunter.”

“And how is that that you know him—or me? What do I have to do with… whatever it is you’re sworn to secrecy? You said you needed my help.”

“Yes,” Skye says, and Fitz is surprised a little to hear that she sounds hesitant. She checks her watch again and shakes out her shoulders. “Okay. Ahem. So. I’m assuming you know about the fourth dimension.” She waits until Fitz nods, which he thinks he vaguely does. “Energy and… the spacetime continuum? Nod if you’re with me.”

“Are you—is this going to go somewhere? Because I don’t need a lecture.”

“Do you want me explain or not?”

Fitz waves a hand.

“Then I’m going to explain this how I want.” Skye grins when Fitz narrows his eyes, but he doesn’t object again.

“Spacetime continuum is—it just is,” she says simply, but her face is thoughtful. “Past, present, future—it’s all just a constrict humans made to try and understand—space, and existence, I guess. And black holes are—well, I can’t get into that too much, but they also just _are_ , as far as we know.”

She winces and flicks at her watch again, relieved at whatever she sees. “Okay. Time and black holes. They’re hard for us to measure within our realm of natural laws, but! We do know—the law of thermodynamics. The first one being—”

“No energy is created and none is destroyed,” Fitz supplies instinctively. But he regrets it when Skye opens her mouth wide, like she’s going to protest his interruption.

But then she beams – _beams **,**_ with teeth and all—and nods enthusiastically. “Yeah, exactly. So, because of that, we know that, any and all black holes out there can and do or don’t exist, because of that balance.”

Fitz hadn’t heard it explained quite like this before, but she doesn’t sound horrendously wrong, so he just nods.

“So we can use the energy balance to track black holes—”

“How?”

“I can’t tell you,” Skye says automatically, and shrugs when Fitz frowns. “It’s not like you can’t think of how yourself if you tried hard enough,” she offers, which he thinks is supposed to distract him from pressing the matter more, and it only does for a second.

“I don’t need your flattery.”

“I’m not here to give it to you. I really can’t tell you, though.” She widens her eyes when he opens his mouth to protest again, no doubt readying herself to shoot him down some more, so he drops it, crossing his arms.

“Anyway. We can track the black holes, and when you can track them, you can find them. And if you can find them, you can _use_ them.”

When she doesn’t go on, he realizes she’s waiting for him to piece something together. He starts to ask why anyone would want to _use_ a black hole, when it hits him. “You can use them to distort time.”

She smiles again like before, like she’s so proud of him, but not in a condescending way. He remembers how she looked at him when they were first in this car, like she _knew_ him knew him.

“Exactly.”

“Wait, so. If black holes can distort time—time _isn’t_ just there?”

“Well.” She makes a so-so motion in the air with her hand. “Even if it can be distorted, there’s something _to_ distort, right? But,” she says louder when Fitz wants to argue, “the most important thing is the _something_ that’s doing the distorting.” Skye takes a breath. “What I do… with my organization, we monitor… causations. Or at least try and track them.”

“How?” Fitz asks, and then sighs when he knows she’ll deflect again.

So he’s surprised when she says, “Energy, mostly. Thermodynamics, stuff like that. The universe is constantly trying to balance itself out, and that leaves a trace.”

And then she looks straight at him, and it’s not with the fond, affectionate look, but almost… _chastising_. “And that’s where you come in.”

“Me? How?”

“Well, first of all, you lied to me.”

Fitz scoffs. “When?”

“I asked you what you did yesterday and you completely ignored the part where you were going to have dinner with Jemma.”

His face floods with heat and he sits up, the chair creaking beneath him. “I—well, that’s—I didn’t think it was—no, I don’t have to explain that to you. But you: what were you doing, _spying_ on me?”

Skye isn’t fazed by this. “I opened the door for you to go in, and you turn around.” She puffs. “Go figure.”

“So you _kidnap_ me? Because I lied about going to dinner?”

The last couple of minutes had sort of been interesting, but Skye’s swiftly reverted back to a heedless hoyden he needs to shake off.

“Because you _didn’t_ go to dinner,” she corrects. “And for the record, I didn’t kidnap you so much as I saved you, by the way. That bus would’ve flatlined you. Which, also would’ve been your fault.”

“ _What_? What are you—what does _any_ of that have to do with what’s happening _right now_?” Fitz sits at the edge of the chair until he’s basically squatting, and it’s uncomfortable, but at least he’s towering over Skye now. “Tell me what you did to me.”

“Technically, you did it to yourself.” She pushes herself to sit up straight so they’re eye to eye again. “You were supposed to meet up with Jemma. And when you didn’t, this is what happened.”

Fitz waits for the rest, but Skye acts like this should be satisfying enough.

He pinches the bridge of his nose. “So, just so I understand: you kidnap me—”

“—saved—”

“—because I didn’t go to dinner with Simmons, and… that is why I woke up in Southampton.”

She nods. “You threw everything off balance. And _big time_ , because I’ve been watching this dimension for a while and I’ve never seen that black hole, so you were lucky I got there when I did—”

“Stop, just stop.” Fitz shakes his head wildly. “No, I don’t—I’m not buying this. No. You’re _insane_. I made a black hole because I didn’t go to dinner with Simmons? No. I mean, I-I haven’t even talked to her in ten years!”

“Exactly!” Skye glares right back at him. “I asked you, remember? About what you did after university? You were supposed to stay with Jemma, but you didn’t, so this was supposed to be your way to balance things out, but then you made the wrong decision, _again_ , and this was the universe’s way of compensating.”

Fitz presses his palms against his eyes and inhales for five seconds. “Listen,” he says, calmly and slowly, in hopes that this poor deranged soul will finally understand. “You are in need of some serious help. I don’t know where you can find it, but if you let me go, I’ll try to get some for you.”

“Shut up, Fitz.”

“I admit the talk about black holes was really convincing for a second—you really did your research, knowing I minored in physics—but this is done. I don’t know how much you paid Simmons and O’Brien, but—”

“If you don’t stop, I’m going to hit you.”

“I wish _you’d_ stop!” Fitz rubs at his temples, a headache brimming. “You are telling me that my decision to not talk to Jemma Simmons after ten years has somehow thrown off the balance of the universe. The _entire_ universe. That I created a black hole by not going to dinner. How am _I_ the mad one in this scenario?”

“Fitz, you are a smart guy,” Skye says. He feels her hands hovering over his wrists, like she’s reaching out to pull his hands down. “Think about this. You meeting her again is not a coincidence. Hunter and Bobbi, people from completely different worlds, suddenly hook up and want their respective best friends, who just happen to be you and Jemma, to meet?”

“That’s not the same thing. Them dating has nothing to do with my ‘making a wrong decision’ or whatever bullshit,” Fitz argues. “You make it sound like—time or-or whatever is _fate_ or something, and I refuse to believe that.”

“It is literally my job to follow these things,” Skye starts, and Fitz is seriously tempted to stick his fingers into his ears at this point. “And I’m telling you, that is what happened. Don’t believe in fate, I don’t care, but this is the _truth_. You were supposed to stay with Jemma, and your decision not to is why you’re here.”

Fitz scowls. “Here? Where _is_ here!?”

Skye falters for a moment, and then, “you’re in the dimension where you never left.”

“What?”

“The first time,” she adds quickly. “The black hole seems to have distorted the timeline so you never left for the states and Jemma didn’t go to Sci-Ops.”

There’s a split moment where both of them are quiet and just watching the other, and he can practically hear her trying to read what he is thinking. The thing is, he’s not thinking of anything, because he can’t think over the sound of his brain screaming.

“No,” he hears himself say. “No, I don’t believe it.” He goes to stand up, but Skye pushes him back down.

Her eyes are wide, and her face scrunches up in frustration. “Fitz, listen to me, I’m—I know this is hard to understand, but I do need your help. This wasn’t—”

But for once, he manages to shove her aside, even when she digs her fingers into his shoulder and he has to bite his tongue to hold back a wince. He reaches for the van door and tugs at it, but he’s not surprised when it doesn’t open.

“Let me out of here, Skye.”

“Fitz, _please_ —”

“Skye, you need to let me out of here,” he demands.

“You don’t understand—”

Suddenly Fitz feels something crawling up his spine, vibrating under his skin; the sensation hits the back of his skull and then his head is throbbing and his hands start to shake. He falls against the door.

“Fitz!”

Skye’s kneeling at his side in a moment, and she turns him over so his back’s leaning against the door.

“Did you just hit me?” he asks weakly. His head is still pulsing.

But Skye is frantically clicking on her watch again. “Nononono. I think you just phased.”

“What?” Fitz rubs at the back of his head, but jerks upright when Skye pulls the door open. The light from the ceiling goes out and the world comes back in sound.

“Get out,” she tells him.

“What, really?” He staggers to his knees. Skye jumps out and pulls him along with her, straightening him out on his feet. “You’re letting me go?”

“I’ll come back,” is all she says. “This is bad.”

“I mean, I’m glad you’re admitting that, but I’m a little lost as to why you hit me.”

Skye is absorbed with the thing on her wrist. When she speaks, she sounds panicked, and she doesn’t look up at Fitz again. “Go back home and wait for me there.”

“Wait for you there? But where are you going?”

“Don’t tell anyone about this,” she tells him instead. “Not even Jemma.”

“Okay, hold on, Skye,” he starts, trying not to get whiplash from her sudden change in mood. “Wait, you still need to explain—”

“I’ll be right back,” she says, climbing back into the van. And then, as an afterthought: "don’t do anything stupid.”

She shuts the door and the van’s exhaust immediately starts. Fitz barely has a moment to step back before the van starts to shimmer, and then, right before him, it fades out of vision.

He squints at the spot. When he reaches out to touch where the door had just been, all he feels is air.

He whips his hand back and holds it to his chest. Fitz shoots his eyes around, but all he sees is the busy crowd of pedestrians coming and going from Kings Cross. Behind him is the blue Toyota.

He stares back at the spot where the van was and rubs the back of his head.

What the hell.

“I think,” he says to no one, “I need a drink.”

 

* * *

 

 

He doesn’t go home.

Well, he kind of does, but like everything else today, it’s only good for confusing and irritating him some more. Skye would probably count it as doing something stupid.

He first goes to a bar, but only after spending a half hour combing through the bottom of the Toyota floor for change since he forgot to grab his wallet on his way out this morning. The bottom of the car, by the way, is covered in Gold Fish pieces, small pink rubber bands and expired coupons for milk, but hardly any money. In the end, he barely has enough for a fiver; he must look like he’d been flatlined by a bus (good line, Skye, thanks), because the bartender gives him a shot of Mezcal instead of the lukewarm beer he knows he can afford.

The alcohol sits funny in his stomach and he realizes he hasn’t eaten all day. He doesn’t have enough to get an Oyster card for two stops, let alone a meal, so he walks all the way to his apartment, hoping he can find something to eat up there. But when he rings up, it’s only to have the doorman—Davis, who Fitz is not surprised doesn’t remember him, he forgets him on the daily—says the only person living in apartment 616 is a Lance Hunter, who’s actually home right now, does he want to call him?

 _Fate had done no rewiring there, apparently_ , he thinks sarcastically. Fitz is both bitter and hopeful when he agrees to the call, and he explains his long, rambling predicament through the intercom. A thoughtful contemplative pause meets him.

And then a burst of wild laughter. Hunter’s voice rattles out of the speaker. “Oi, it’s only two in the afternoon, pal. Too early to be this piss drunk. But kudos on making it a tear jerker, very moving. Cheers.” _Click_.

Fitz stares at the glass revolving door for a while, seriously considering bashing his head in. Davis eyes him warily, and he’s pretty sure the woman on a balcony across the street is on the phone with the cops, so Fitz eventually drags himself away from home, shoulders slumped and stomach turning endlessly.

He wanders around aimlessly for a while. He also forgot to grab any sort of watch or phone, so he has no idea what time it is when he finds himself back at Kings Cross and crawls to lay down in the back seats of the car. This is where he last saw Skye, so maybe he should just wait for her to show up again.

But his stomach, and head, and entire being feels restless and miserable, and he knows that he’s avoiding doing what Skye had told him to do; _go home_ , she’d told him, and he can’t think of anywhere less he’d rather be than back in _Southampton_.

He wonders if he’s desperate enough to eat the Gold Fish, but the idea is so disturbing, he dry heaves for a minute before deciding, this is _bullshit_. He’s Leopold James Fitz, and he shouldn’t be ducking under the window when a cop walks by the lot, he has a ten figure deal with multiple investors. He’s going to go back to that godforsaken wasteland of a town and _demand_ Simmons explain what she did and where Skye is.

When he sees the Southampton sign again, he realizes he doesn’t actually know where he’s going, and both the gas tank and sun are hitting a pretty low point. He drives down a street and is about to turn onto another one when he notices that pile of scraps of a BMW in the carport again, and he barely manages to turn at the last second onto the driveway, parking the car jaggedly.

There’s a low murmur of voices coming from some part of the house he can’t see that doesn’t cease when he closes the front door behind him. He manages a step before he notices a head pop around the corner.

It’s the boy from this morning, and the one that’s in the pictures on the stairs. Fitz pretends he doesn’t know what the kid is supposed to be to him.

He grins ear to ear when he catches Fitz’s eye and bolts around the wall and down the foyer, snaking his arms round Fitz’s knees for a moment before stepping back and looking up at him with big brown eyes.

“Dad!”

The voices are replaced with gasps and shuffling feet, and then three more faces appear in the doorway of the foyer. Fitz makes out Mackenzie’s tepid face that dissolves into a half smile when he notices him, and it strikes Fitz that, out of all the people who don’t know him right now, Mackenzie seems to know him too much. Beside Mackenzie is a woman half his size, but she does not have the same easy expression as Mackenzie, sticking Fitz with a raised eyebrow and a thin-lipped frown.

The third face is Simmons, who rushes towards him faster than he can take stock of her, and he’s confused about so many things, like why he’s here and suddenly being pulled into a tight hug.

“Fitz! Are you all right?” She pulls back just as fast and cups his face.

The rehearsed speech dies in his mouth. His skin is hot where her hands hold him. “I—”

“Where have you been?”

“London,” he manages.  

Simmons widens her eyes and drops her hands. “London? Why?”

He looks away from her piercing stare, full of worry and confusion and something else, and peers over her shoulder. The other adults hover awkwardly behind them, having barely taken a step from the doorway. The kid is watching next to them.

Mackenzie suddenly moves. He scoops up the boy and flips him over his shoulder, eliciting a chorus of laughter. “Hey kid, I have to show you something,” he says. Fitz doesn’t miss the wink he throws Simmons as he opens the front door and disappears into the dark.

The woman quickly follows, placing a hand on both Simmons and Fitz, but only giving a nod to the former. “We’ll see you tomorrow?”

Simmons nods. “Thank you.”

And then the door is closed. The air is static.

“Fitz,” she says after a beat. He doesn’t look up. “What’s going on? I tried calling you all day.”

He shrugs. “I didn’t bring a phone.”

He can sense her eyes on him, but he still can’t make himself meet them. “Mack said you ran out of here in a daze. I thought you were in trouble. What happened? Why were you in London?”

Something about her tone feels like he’s being disciplined, and it makes his skin crawl.

“Because I _live_ there,” he snaps, and when he looks up, her mouth is open, her eyes wide again. “This isn’t my life. I’m an engineer, I work for RAD TECH, and – none of this is mine. Me and you—we haven’t talked in a decade! This isn’t my house, or-or my shoes, or—”

“Oh, Fitz.” She rolls her eyes. “And that car out there isn’t yours, either, is it?”

Fitz glowers. She is hitting every button, like they’re back in school and she knew so much better. “Yes, exactly,” he says, defiantly. “And I don’t know what Mackenzie’s playing at, but he’s not my mate.”

Simmons scoffs. “Stop it.” She moves from the door and picks up the jacket he’d haphazardly tossed on the entrance bench.

“What,” Fitz says hotly, following her with his eyes.

She gives him a look over her shoulder. “What were you doing in London?”

“I was trying to figure out why I woke up here, _actually_. Because, like I said, this isn’t my—”

“Not your life, yes, I understood. You’re so _hilarious_ , Fitz. Thank you for taking responsibility for the panic you put me in all day.” She thrusts open a closet by the stairs and shoves his jacket on a hanger with fervor. “Mack and Elena cancelled their plans so they could stay with the kids all day and I could look for you. I don’t know how many places I looked and—.” She swings the door shut and sighs, rubbing at one eye with the back of her palm. “And now you won’t tell me what you were doing?”

Fitz resists groaning. This feels a lot like screaming at the deaf. “I _am_ telling you. I woke up and—actually, first I had an accident yesterday, and then, when I woke up, I was _here_ for some reason, and I tried to go to RAD TECH, and then home, but I couldn’t, and, then, what’s her face said—”

“Are you drunk?”

“Wha— _no_.”

Simmons stares incredulity.

“Simmons. I’m serious.” Fitz holds out his hands, as if they could reach the words that aren’t coming to him. “This isn’t some lark. I know it sounds mad, I understand, but I don’t know how else to explain it.” He shakes his head and pleads, “this isn’t my life.”

Skye had singled Simmons out when she’d told Fitz not to talk about what she’d told him. She must’ve known Simmons would be the only one with enough sense to see the truth. When Simmons doesn’t react immediately after Fitz finishes, he thinks he can see her working everything out, and, for a moment his breath hitches in anticipation.

She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.

“Well, I’m sorry your life is such a disappointment to you, but that still doesn’t excuse you for leaving before telling me where you were going and what you were doing.”

Fitz’s stomach turns again.

He is not Leopold James Fitz, an engineer at RAD TECH and genius billionaire. At least, not to these people. And, he finally admits, not to himself. Right now, anyway.

“Nothing.” He throws his hands up. “I wasn’t doing _anything_. I’m _stuck_ here, apparently. There, you happy?”

A heavy moment passes. Fitz waits for Simmons to roll her eyes or continue to dig into him with her steely tone, but suddenly her eyes flash and the anger simmers out and something almost like regret replaces it.

She covers the space between them in the next moment, and, to Fitz’s surprise, instead of strangling him (as is reasonably expected), she wraps her arms around his neck again, pressing her face into the crook of it.

Fitz’s hands unconsciously settle around her waist when she doesn’t immediately let go.

“I’m happy you came back, and that you’re safe. Everything else doesn’t matter. Okay? I don’t want to fight,” she says against his skin.

He nods without much conviction, standing in quiet shock. Something tells him he’d gotten off easy.

She pulls back from his arms and a flicker of a polite smile crosses her face. It looks kind of painful. “I’m going to go get Emmett.” Before she closes the door behind her, he catches her eyes and she adds, “but Fitz? You’re not the only one with disappointments.”

She doesn’t wait for a reply, thankfully, and leaves him standing alone in the foyer.

He’s still contemplating what he’d missed in their exchange, hours later, when he’s hyper aware of her curled figure a few feet away from him in the bed he’d woken up in that morning.

When the sun starts to rise through the blinders, he eventually remembers: Skye never showed up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to go up weeks ago, but life derailed my plans . Thank you for your patience (and kind words!). 
> 
> There's a lot of Fake Science in this that was inspired by the mcu. Hopefully it wasn't too confusing! If you have any questions about it, feel free to send a comment or hmu on tumblr (scriboergosums) and, if it's not a spoiler, I'll try to clear up my thinking :) feel free to hmu about other things, as well!


End file.
